Boost Your Visibility: Simple Marketing for Small Business
Social media marketing, small business marketing, and content strategy that actually works—for creative entrepreneurs, photographers, and service-based business owners who want to grow with clarity, not hustle.
Hosted by photographer, personal branding expert, and visibility strategist Brenda Eckhardt, this podcast delivers honest conversations, mindset shifts, and practical visibility strategies to help you attract the right clients, simplify your content, and show up with purpose.
Whether you're building a brand, navigating digital overwhelm, or just want to feel more confident showing up online—this show is your reminder that you can grow your business without burning out.
For women in business, creative entrepreneurs, and small business owners ready to grow with heart, this is your space.
Boost Your Visibility: Simple Marketing for Small Business
YouTube Shorts for Small Business: My 218K View Strategy
YouTube Shorts are the #1 low-effort, high-return marketing tool for small businesses right now.
In this episode of Boost Your Visibility, I’m sharing why I went all in—and how one cap & gown Short hit 218,000+ views, brought in new followers, and STILL shows up in Google Search and ChatGPT results.
🔑 Here’s what you’ll learn:
- How to repurpose Reels as YouTube Shorts (no fancy gear needed)
- The secret to storytelling that actually converts
- Why YouTube is the only platform giving long-term results
- A content workflow you can copy: 1 long video, 4–6 Shorts, and 1 email every two weeks
- How to wake up the algorithm—even with low views or likes
💡 Whether you’re a service-based business, a creative, or just tired of chasing trends, this strategy is your shortcut to consistent growth (without ads).
🎓 Want help implementing this? Check out my Boost Your Visibility Academy for step-by-step marketing education designed for real business owners.
👉 Like, comment, and let me know how YouTube is working for you.
#YouTubeShorts #SmallBusinessMarketing #ContentStrategy #MarketingTips #RepurposeContent
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💬 Ready to grow your business with clarity and less stress? Apply to work with me
I recently went all in on YouTube Shorts, and I'm here to share the results with you. Before I get to that, though, I just want to explain and acknowledge how we all feel that we create content and feel like it goes nowhere. Sometimes it flops. Sometimes we post it and forget it and you begin to wonder what is it all for? Not every post performs well. That's exactly why I went all in on YouTube Shorts, because YouTube content lasts so much longer than any other platform. It is evergreen.
Speaker 1:One of my biggest wins came from a photo shoot that I did with a high school senior. I did a really cute reel for her cap and gown session. It got over 218,000 views and 4,500 plus likes. It brought in a lot of new followers to this account. It's yet to be determined if these followers are my tried and true ideal customer, but it woke up the algorithm enough that, hopefully, we continue to gain momentum, and sometimes any first step is the right first step at tapping the shoulder of these AI bots to say, hey, I exist, there's action over here on my account, let's go.
Speaker 1:So that short wasn't about a pose, it was about storytelling. It struck a nerve because it's relatable and it showed a transformation and with shorts and short form video, in my experience, the number one way to grow an account and to show what you offer and the transformation you bring to your customers and that's what people forget the connection, the storytelling. We are all guilty of it as content creators and the real goal for us is to connect right and to build relationships. Show the transformation. It's not how many cap cut transitions you used. Another win that I had was a reel, or now a YouTube short that I created for a flower shop. I did content creation and marketing strategy for them and created this reel and we uploaded it to YouTube shorts. The video was quiet, it was unassuming, but it worked. It wasn't clever. It was clear. It was because of the caption and that's something we all forget in marketing is that clarity builds trust faster than cleverness ever will. So what did I really learn? Storytelling, clarity and consistency work. The number of likes on a post doesn't matter if people are silently searching for you. One thing that I've noticed lately is that, while views and likes may seem random, search-based content is quietly building traction behind the scenes. That cap and gown reel. It's showing up on Google in the short form video area for my local area, and it's also showing up in ChatG, gpt, when people search for certain key phrases for high school senior pictures, which is part of what I do. That means that content that I made long ago is still working, and that is really the core of why I went all in on YouTube shorts.
Speaker 1:Next, if you're a small business, especially one that doesn't have a lot of visual action happening on a day-to-day basis, youtube shorts are your low effort, high return strategy. It's a great way to get results and get traction on YouTube. You don't need a massive studio setup. You don't need to be a professional photographer. You don't even need to post every day. You just need to post a story, a YouTube short that resonates with your target market. You already have the stories in your business. You have your customer transformations that you witness every single day. You're just not using them. You're not creating content based on them. So here's how I'm moving forward, and you can feel free to copy this and use it as your new content plan, your new process for creating content and where it goes, and this is easy.
Speaker 1:Step one is batch create YouTube shorts based on what you already have, so old reels that you've posted on Instagram. You can download them. You can remove the watermark. There are lots of places online that will remove the watermark so that you can upload it to YouTube Shorts without that little Instagram square on it. You can post behind the scenes clips, client transformation moments. You can post one quick tip when you've had some sort of a customer interaction, maybe a challenge or a concern that a customer had. That is so easy for you to answer. It's like second nature. Just do a quick voiceover 30 second or 60 second YouTube short. Just create it on your phone. All you need to do is pick up your phone and say, hey, I just had a customer come in. This is a common question and I just wanted to address it and see if it's helpful to somebody out there. So simple. And then, of course, the before and after with a caption showing the transformation of what you create for your customers and the win that your customers walk away with. Here's the magic. Instead of trying to create new content, use what you already have. Use what you know has already worked in the past, whether it's on Instagram or Facebook it. Upload it to YouTube shorts and the next step is to anchor your content with long form video on YouTube. Now I know that sounds overwhelming, but it's basically doing what I'm doing, where you're covering a topic, you're just picking up your phone, recording and explaining what it is that you solve and giving some quick wins to your audience.
Speaker 1:Reels come and go, facebook posts disappear within hours. People forget about them. Well-keyworded titles on YouTube and well-created YouTube videos are evergreen. They can last for as long as your account is out there. That's search-based gold. It's basically SEO for social media. And, yeah, there's SEO for Instagram and Facebook, but YouTube is easier to understand and easier to tap into because it's evergreen. I do think Instagram and Facebook have their place and I will continue to use them, but YouTube seems to be the place that has the deeper relationship that you can create, not just with your customer, but with your content. You can go deeper and you can create layers of your content and get so much out of one long form video. You can get so much out of your past reels and posts. So here's why long form still wins it shows up on Google, it lasts for years, it builds trust and it sustains SEO.
Speaker 1:If you're tired of shouting into the void of Instagram, start here. Just try to upload all of your past reels, see how it works for you. Be diligently consistent about it. Youtube has a great area where you can schedule out your posts. Take a day or two days I know time is of the essence or have someone else do it for you. Have a virtual assistant on the short term, have your teenager, have your husband or wife, son or daughter, just go through this process of downloading and uploading your reels to make them into shorts and watch the metrics and learn from it. It is absolute gold for you. This is how you can get away from being a business owner without hiring a marketing agency. These are the tips and tricks that are how you can avoid the expensive marketing agency and hack your own marketing very easily, and this information teaches you exactly what you need to do in the future. It's such a great hack.
Speaker 1:So here's my new workflow, and feel free to steal it. Use it however you want to use it. One long form video weekly, bi-weekly or monthly you decide however often you want to do that. Whatever is the most sustainable for you. From that, we take four to six YouTube shorts. One email every other week. Email still has a great impact. All of this content leads to your core offer. That's it. No chasing trends, no dancing, just clear, real marketing that works for you long after you've posted it.
Speaker 1:So if you've been feeling like no one sees your content or, worse, that no one cares, remember this. The numbers don't matter. They don't always tell the whole story. Sometimes it's the quiet, consistent work that you do in the background that's being searched and found, it's being recommended, it's waking up the algorithms and it's building trust. Let's stop judging the power of our work by likes and shares. Let's face it. We all know most people lurk on the other apps. Let's start measuring by longevity, by impact and by your legacy. These youtube videos will be here long after you and I are. Your story matters, your work matters. Let's make sure people can actually find it.
Speaker 1:I do have an academy and I'm not here to sell it. I'm just here to tell you about it because it has helped so many people and my personal goal, because I have my own business, two businesses I am a photographer and I'm a marketing consultant. I help people build strategies that work for them in their business. But I've put all of these keys and all of this information into an online academy at a very affordable rate. You can go through the videos and take step-by-step tutorials to really take control of your own marketing, or you can set one of your employees in front of it Again your husband, your wife, your teenage daughter, it doesn't matter, anybody can learn how to do this.
Speaker 1:We're in a different time with small business mid-sized business marketing. We're in a different time with small business, mid-sized business marketing. We're in a time where you can learn how to do this in little bits as you go, and by you learning how to do these little tips and tricks, you're building your understanding of your own business rather than paying somebody else to understand it. Understand your voice and separate yourself from your brand and your legacy. This is how you go deep with your customers and this is how people like me have been in business for 21 years. So I'm here to help. Please ask any questions you have and I look forward to talking to you in the next episode of Boost your Visibility.
